Weekly Photo Challenge: Early Bird ( 8 Images)

This is a weekly photo challenge I couldn’t resist! Sunrise is the time I feel nature comes to life in most vibrant colors. Unfortunately I’m a night owl, so it’s not very often I can catch the early bird. But lately, just for pure fascination with the early light, I’ve gotten up in time to peek into nature when it’s waking up.

“The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun”. -Christopher McCandless

So here are a few images from this morning and a some (not earlier published) from the last couple of weeks. I hope you enjoy. Have a wonderful week.

Miss Roseate Spoonbill says good morning.A Grackle scans the salt marsh.Papa Osprey enjoys the first rays.A Great Blue Heron in his morning meditation.Papa Osprey returns when one of the chicks is getting breakfast.Mottled ducks at sunrise.This morning’s sunrise over the bay.

If I could awaken to a beautiful sunrise over the water like that I would get up early too. 😉 Unfortunately mine is just over the coolies here. Plus, I hate to get up that early anymore. Old age sucks. 😉

Like you, I’m a night owl and find getting up to see the sunrise a tad challenging, though when I do it’s always breath taking and well worth it! I see that you shared a photo of mottled ducks – I see what you mean for the similarities to the photos I posted of the Mallard cross pair.

It’s so worth it, but ah so difficult 🙂 We have these Mottled Ducks and “hybrid” Mallard/Mottled ones. Today I saw a male with partly green head…one of the “hybrids”. Interesting stuff in the duck world 🙂

Since I work the school year, I have to get up early but I am getting ready for work so don’t really get to enjoy the sunrises and those golden moments. I always tell myself that once school is out for the summer, I will continue to get up early and enjoy it, but then I find I enjoy sleeping in too much! 🙂 If I had such beauty to greet me each morning, perhaps I would find it easier to rise with the sun.

Happy you liked my “rare” sunrise pictures. I had to get up at or before sunrise for years but I never had time to enjoy them…now that I’m my own boss I try my best not to schedule meetings or teleconferences before 9 or 10 am….so my early mornings are mostly free…to sleep in. I’m such a night owl …and totally understand that you’d want to sleep in when you’re off in the summer 🙂

I know the bird shots were taken with my “jogging camera” because that’s the only one I carry when out jogging here in my neighborhood. It’s a lightweight bridge camera with a superzoom 24-1200, Canon XS50HS.